Rice Chexie treats & cozy GF soup!

How did it get to be November?! It's that time of year when a girl's thoughts turn to outlines, memos, final exams, and stress stress stress. And cozy comfort food that's perfect for fall. Just a quick post tonight but I wanted to share two easy recipes I've enjoyed recently.

Rice Chexie treats!

By all rights Rice Krispies should be gluten-free but they contain malt flavoring, which comes from barley. No go. I am cuckoo for rice krispie treats, but the great news is that you can make a GF version that's just as good, if not better, using Rice Chex, which are thankfully gluten-free. Here's what you need:

* pan (8x8 or 9x13, greased with cooking spray. I use Pyrex baking dishes.)
* 2-3 tbsp of butter or margarine
* 1 bag of marshmallows (check the ingredients to make sure they're GF. Also, minis melt faster than the big ones)
* 6 cups of Rice Chex cereal
* optional: 1 tsp vanilla extract (again, check ingredients)

Spritz your pan. Over low heat, melt your butter/margarine and marshmallows, stirring constantly. The second it's smooth, remove from heat - don't overcook. Add vanilla and stir. Add your cereal and stir it through the goo; this is always the annoying part. Dump the mixture into the pan. It helps to use waxed paper, the back of a wet spoon, or dampen your hands to press the mixture flat. Now comes the hard part: waiting. Cut into squares or shapes and enjoy! They are amazing and taste just like the real thing. (Note: I have previously tried using organic brown rice krispies. Feel free to try it for yourself but IMO it tasted like cardboard. Rice Chex are about 100x better for this purpose!)

Cozy Comforting Potato-Leek-Veggies I Found in my Fridge Soup

On a cold fall day potato-leek soup hits the spot. I made a big batch of this soup, but it didn't last long. I brought it to school for lunch and received two compliments from passers-by who said it looked delicious. Oh, it was! I based the soup on this great and easy recipe for Cream of Asparagus Soup. I didn't take any pictures, but here's what I used, as far as I can remember:

* 1-2 tbsp butter or margarine (olive oil should be fine too)
* 2 leeks (Trader Joe's, pre-trimmed - chopped & rinsed)
* 2 potatoes, peeled & chopped (I used russet; yukon gold would be delicious too)
* about 1/2 sweet onion, chopped
* about 1/2 pound of asparagus, chopped into 1" pieces
* 1 carrot, sliced into rounds
* 2 cups of Pacific organic chicken broth (1 small box, which is what I had on hand. If you have more broth, omit the water. Of course you could also use veggie broth. It should be a total of 3 1/2 to 4 cups of liquid.)
* 1 1/2 cups water
* 1/2 cup goat milk (Whoa, GOAT? Okay, yes, here's where I got crazy. This was an experiment. Goat milk can be found at Trader Joe's and is supposedly easier to digest than cow milk, so I gave it a try. I wouldn't drink it by itself, but if you like the pungent, tangy flavor of chèvre, it's a nice stir-in for soups or mashed potatoes. While I'm still not on great terms with dairy, this milk seemed to be okay with me. You might prefer to use regular milk, Lactaid milk, or heavy cream.)
* kosher salt & pepper to taste

In a large soup pot or saucepan, melt butter/marg or heat olive oil over medium or medium-high heat. Sauté leeks til they soften. Add broth and/or water, potatoes, onions, carrots, and asparagus. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat, cover & let simmer about 10-15 minutes til your veggies are nice and soft.

I have - and LOVE - an immersion hand-blender, which is absolutely ideal and so easy for pureeing soup (and it's dishwasher-safe). If you have a hand-blender, use that or transfer soup in batches to your regular blender and process til smooth or whatever texture appeals to you. Return soup to the pot. Add your milk and re-heat over low. Season with salt and pepper; serve with a little shredded cheese on top if you like (or perhaps a dollop of sour cream?). Deeeelish. I can't wait to make another batch!

New items at Trader Joe's!

Hello, my gluten-free friends and allies! For the last month I have been incredibly busy packing and moving into my fantastic new home and getting ready for a crazy new chapter in my life, but I'm finally getting settled. One perk of my new location is that Trader Joe's is now only 10-15 minutes away, whereas I used to drive about half an hour each way to get my TJ's GF goodies. (One of the fun realities of celiac life: it is virtually impossible to find everything you need in one place. I shop at three different food stores, at least, to find the products I want/need.) Trader Joe's has been rolling out a number of new items lately, several of which are relevant to this blog's interests.

Item #1: Peanut flour. I haven't tried this personally. I'm not really sure how one would use peanut flour, but the product card recommends using it for baking cakes and cookies. I think it could also make an interesting coating for baked chicken or fish.

Item #2: Snickerdoodles! These are free of the 7 biggest allergens (wheat, soy, egg, dairy, peanuts, tree nuts, and shellfish - whew, that's a relief. I hate shellfish in my cookies!) so they're vegan as well as celiac friendly. Made with sorghum flour and date paste, the texture is very soft and chewy, a rarity in GF cookiedom. They're more like a cinnamon-y fig newton than the buttery sugar cookie you might recall from pre-celiac life, so I'm not sure snickerdoodle is the most apt name. The cookies are quite small with a serving size of 2 cookies at 130 calories and 4.5g fat; each box contains only 12 cookies.

New GF bakery on the Main Line.

My helpful elves have informed me that a new GF bakery is opening soon (well, TODAY according to their website) in lovely Wynnewood, PA! The bakery is located right at the train station, accessible by the R5 line or the 105 bus. A dedicated GF facility, Main Line Bakery will offer cupcakes, cakes, bread, and other tempting baked goods. Check out their Facebook page for more information. Can't wait to try them out! It's an exciting time to be gluten-free, that's for sure - new products, bakeries, and shops just keep popping up all over the place.

In more personal news, you may have noticed I haven't been posting much recently. There are some pretty huge things going on in my life (all good, but still!) that have been consuming my time and energy - and will continue to do so. I hope that I will have time to keep this blog active, but please bear with me as posts and updates will be even more sporadic.

When GF is a little too good for my own good.

My mom (who is also gluten-free!) and I were recently reminiscing about trips to France, and of course the memories included FOOD. I'd need a straitjacket to keep me away from French bread and fromage, despite the pain of le pain, but one thing I don't have to pine for is crèpes! I will always lovingly remember the crèpes sold by Parisian street vendors but the GF version is super tasty as well, thanks to the geniuses at Pamela's Products.

Pamela's Baking & Pancake Mix is, to my knowledge, generally regarded as one of the best ready-made GF flour mixes on the market. Their recipe for crèpes is incredibly simple and cooks up very quickly. Since I generally cook for one, I halved the recipe, yielding 4 crèpes. They are a little more gummy and fragile than their wheaty counterparts, but the taste resemblance is so close that I think anyone would enjoy them. I stuffed one with sliced strawberries, one with organic wild berry preserves, and sprinkled the third with a packet of Sugar in the Raw. (The fourth didn't last long enough to make it to the plate!) Absolutely delicious and a nice treat for brunch when you've got the energy.

In other baking experiment news, I bought a box of the famous Betty Crocker Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Cookie Mix a few months ago at Target (!) and was waiting for an opportunity to test it out. I had to make them with a stick of butter, since I didn't have any baking-friendly dairy-free substitute on hand. Not the best news for my stomach, but how could anything taste bad if it's got a stick of butter in it? The dough is crumbly and very stiff to work, but once the butter softens up, it gets more like regular cookie dough. I lined my baking sheets with parchment paper (I did not throw out my kitchen implements after my diagnosis, as many people do) and the cookies turned out beautifully.

I have to confess, I think they look better than they taste. The mix is so gritty, even if the cookies themselves are a perfect combination of crispy and chewy. I brought them to a get-together on Saturday night so I'd have something safe to nibble, and I gave everyone fair warning that these were not normal cookies. But to my surprise, non-GF people actually liked them - a LOT. Like most GF substitutes, once you get over your initial shock and comparison to wheat, these cookies really grew on me (literally. Hello, calories) and I like them better now than I did at first. All the same, I won't be making these often. I don't know how they'd turn out without butter, although now I belatedly see no butter instructions on the website (it would be nice if they'd printed it on the box!), and I really don't need the temptation since I'm constantly trying to lose a few pounds. (When I got diagnosed I thought, "Well, at least I'll lose weight." Yeah right. There's too much good food out there!) But thank you anyway, Ms. Crocker!